Second Chances
by Riker's Beard
Summary: After an unlikely rescue from the exploding Scimitar, Data meets a certain Gallifreyan Timelord. They team up to prevent a dangerous weapon from the Time War to fall into the wrong hands. Together they travel back to the year 2344, the year when the Enterprise-C was lost defending the Klingon outpost Narendra-III against the Romulans.
1. Chapter 1

"Captain's log, stardate 56932.4: It has been a little over two months since Shinzon had taken over the Romulan Empire in a coup d'état and subsequently been killed aboard his flagship in a battle with the USS Enterprise. Starfleet has increased patrols along the Romulan Neutral Zone and sent a task force to Romulus. The Minotaur has now been on patrol for almost ten weeks without any notable incidents. In another two weeks we will return to Starbase 10."

Captain Erica Walters, a middle aged woman with dark, shoulder length hair, finished her log entry as suddenly the OPS officer's console beeped.

"Captain, we are receiving an automated distress signal", the OPS officer, a male Bolian lieutenant reported.

"Lieutenant, can you pinpoint the source of this distress call?" Walters asked.

"I've got the coordinates. It is within our sector", the communications officer reported and sent the coordinates to the helm.

"Set course for those coordinates. Maximum warp. Sound yellow alert", Captain Walters ordered.

The officer at the helm, a Bajoran woman with the rank of junior Lieutenant, acknowledged the order with an "Aye, Captain" and pushed the buttons on the touchscreen of her console that made the Minotaur fly at maximum warp to the coordinates she had just received from the OPS officer.

The USS Minotaur, a Centaur class starship, entered warp and exited at her destination after a short flight that only lasted a few minutes.

"Sensors are picking up a heavily damaged ship on our starboard bow. It appears to be one of ours. I am also registering an unusually high amount of Chroniton particles in this area", the Bolian Lieutenant reported as soon as the Minotaur had exited warp.

"On screen", the captain ordered.

A heavily damaged starship of Federation design appeared on the main view screen. Its' saucer section was missing and one of its warp nacelles was flickering and venting plasma.

"Looks like the stardrive section of an Ambassador class or a similar ship. Can you identify it?" the Minotaur's first officer Commander Antonescu asked. Stefan Antonescu was tall, in his early thirties, and spoke with an eastern European accent.

"The signature in the distress signal says it's the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C, sir" the Bolian responded.

"The Enterprise C was lost with all hands in orbit of Narendra III in 2344. The largest pieces we ever found were some chunks of the saucer section no larger than a runabout."

"I am detecting one human life sign on board the ship. It is very faint", the Bolian reported.

"Dr. Yokomoto and Lieutenant Commander Seltok, please report to transporter room two," the Captain spoke into the intercom.

"Captain, we have visual confirmation. It is the Enterprise-C", the OPS officer reported and enlarged a section of the view screen that showed the registry number on one of the ship's damaged warp nacelles.

The captain sent a five person away team consisting of Commander Antonescu, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Yokomoto, Chief Engineer Seltok, and the two security officers Lt. Alicia Harris and Ensign Rick Jacobs to beam over to the damaged ship.

The away team materialized on what was left of the Enterprise-C's auxillary bridge, which was located on top of the neck that would have connected the stardrive section with the saucer section, if the Enterprise-C still had had one. Dr. Yokomoto immediately noticed the unconscious woman on the floor next to the tactical station. She was human, but wore Romulan clothing. He rushed towards her and began scanning her with his medical tricorder. Close to her the away team saw another figure, a male who was also wearing Romulan clothing, motionless and pinned down under a support beam. When Seltok saw his face, he immediately recognized the man as a Soong Type android, albeit with Romulan features, including the pointed ears, slanted eyebrows and the typical Romulan haircut. It became immediately clear that the android had saved the woman's life. If he had not been, the support would have fallen on her and killed her. Dr. Yokomoto had finished scanning the still unconscious woman and tapped his com badge to request her and himself to be immediately beamed to the Minotaur's sickbay.

Several hours later the Minotaur had locked a tractor beam on the Enterprise after Chief Engineer Seltok had determined that the damaged Ambassador class starship was structurally sound enough be towed at warp without sustaining further damage or even disintegrating. First officer Antonescu was left in command of the Enterprise-C with a skeleton crew from the Minotaur. This skeleton crew consisted of a bridge crew and several engineering teams. Hull breaches were being repaired and systems were being brought back online.

Meanwhile Seltok and Yokomoto were reporting to Captain Walters in her ready room about their findings aboard the Enterprise-C.

"When we came aboard, the only area that had life support was the auxilary bridge. We have not found any dead bodies and no signs of the original crew. The damage to the ship has been caused by Romulan weapons", the chief engineer reported.

"That's what I had expected, expect the lack of dead bodies. The Enterprise- C had been lost defending Narendra II against the Romulans. Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"The ship's interior has received some very peculiar "modifications" and it appears that the battle damage had been obtained during at least two separate incidents", the Vulcan answered.

Indeed, some of the original damage had been repaired with Romulan materials and then been damaged again.

"What kind of modifications?" the Captain asked.

"The modifications appear cosmetic in nature and do not affect the functionality of the ship. They are Romulan in design and include a large swimming pool, an early version of a holodeck, several artworks, and a bar stocked with alcoholic beverages mostly of Romulan origin. There are a number of what could be considered luxury items and several other facilities that serve recreational purposes. Most of them are incomplete and outdated by several decades."

"What about the survivors?", the Captain asked her Chief Medical Officer

"The woman is still unconscious. She has suffered serious internal injuries, but is in stable condition and I expect her to make a full recovery. We have identified her as Lieutenant Natasha Yar. What is strange is that according to the Starfleet database, Lt. Yar was killed in 2264 at the age of 27. We took a DNA sample and it was a 100% match. ", Dr. Yokomoto reported.

"She didn't look any older than that when we beamed her aboard. Shouldn't she be in her forties by now?

"According to our scans she is about 30 years old. But that is not all"

"There is more?", the Captain asked.

"She is anywhere between two and four months pregnant, but we can't clearly determine, because the baby is a half Romulan hybrid", Dr. Yokomoto continued.

"Does she have any living relatives?"

"The database lists a sister named Ishara on Turkana IV"

"Turkana IV? That planet had broken off contact with the Federation years ago. What about the android?", the Captain asked.

"A Soong-type android, it appears very similar to the one discovered by the Enterprise-E a few months ago.", the Vulcan responded.

"Can it be repaired?", the captain asked.

"To be honest, I am not an expert on androids. I would prefer to consult with Commander LaForge of the Enterprise. He would be a logical choice to assist me with damage assessment and possible repairs", the Vulcan chief engineer said.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Battle of the Bassen Rift, Romulan Space, two months earlier**_

Daimon Krax had been watching the two large starships battle each other for quite some time from the bridge of his cloaked Marauder class starship. When the sleek Starfleet vessel rammed the much larger Romulan battleship he thought they would completely destroy each other. Two heavily damaged Romulan Warbirds were drifting nearby. Despite the urging of his crew that those ships contained valuable technology, Krax paid those ships no attention. Instead he focused on what he considered the big prize.

The Ferengi was hoping when the battle was over, something would be left for him to salvage and to sell on the black market. Preferably something of great value. Both ships were the most modern designs the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire had to offer. He was already calculating in his head how many bars of gold pressed latinum he could charge for a quantum torpedo launcher from the Sovereign class ship, or for a Romulan cloaking device. Provided those items survived the battle intact.

A cloaking device was keeping his own ship, the Krantor from being detected by these two behemoths, which were despite heavy damage still going at each other. A Ferengi marauder class starship did normally not come equipped with a cloaking device. During the Dominion War, when he had made most of his fortune selling parts from the wreckage after major battles, Krax had wisely invested some of his profit into some non-standard equipment, including the most advanced cloaking device he could get his hands on. This allowed him to acquire new merchandise undetected.

Krax had stumbled upon the ongoing battle by coincidence. His original goal was to obtain a mysterious weapon that could prevent anything it was aimed at from ever existing. He did not actually believe that this weapon was as powerful as his client had claimed, but this client had offered Krax a significant amount of gold pressed latinum, which he was hoping to invest into some new business ventures. His client had told him that this weapon was hidden somewhere in a secret base on an asteroid inside Romulan territory. This weapon could make him the wealthiest being in the entire alpha quadrant.

Shortly after crossing the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Krantor's long range sensors had picked up energy discharges from a battle in a nearby sector. Now timing was everything. He had to wait for the shields on one or both ships to go down, in order to beam anything out.

"Daimon Krax, I am reading a massive energy spike from the Romulan ship", a member of his crew and fellow Ferengi, reported.

"Beam everything out of there before it blows", Krax shouted to a third Ferengi, who was operating the Krantor's cargo transporters from his station on the bridge.

The Ferengi transporter chief had already tagged everything the scanners had identified as a) valuable, b) not dangerous, and only needed to push a single button to beam those items into the Krantor's enormous cargo holds. A fraction of a second later the Romulan ship exploded.

Aboard the Romulan battleship Scimitar, Data prepared for the end of his existence. He had always believed he would eventually outlive his friends from the Enterprise. Captain Picard hat just dematerialized nanoseconds earlier, after Data had given him his emergency transponder. Data saw Shinzon in front of him, dead, impaled. Data fired his phaser into the thalaron generator only seconds before the targeting sequence was complete, expecting the resulting explosion would kill him.

Then the android suddenly sensed that he was dematerializing. Had the Enterprise somehow managed to get a transporter lock on him? When he rematerialized he realized immediately that this had not been the case. The cargo bay in which he found himself did not look like any of the ones aboard the Enterprise and there were signs written in Ferengi on the walls. A large number of items, Romulan in origin, were materializing next to him. There was a stack of Romulan plasma torpedoes to his left. He recognized what appeared to be a cloaking device in front of him, and there were five romulan starfighters on the other side of the room, three of them were badly damaged. They were the same kind of starfighters as the one he had flown with Captain Picard earlier to escape from the Scimitar. The floor was littered with all kinds of parts and pieces.

Data caught a glimpse of a very strange object standing next to a bulkhead. This object was neither Ferengi nor Romulan in origin. It was a large blue box with the words "POLICE BOX" in white letters on a black sign. The box had two doors in the front and a light on the top. Scanning his internal memory banks, Data recognized within nanoseconds that it was an item from early 20th century Earth.

He turned around and saw two Ferengi were pointing phaser rifles at him. Data did not resist and raised his arms. Within nanoseconds the android had calculated the outcomes of all possible scenarios and came to the conclusion that his best move was to wait and see. He needed more information, needed to know where he was and who he was dealing with. Once he had all the information, he would attempt an escape and return to the Enterprise. Memorizing every detail of his surroundings, Data walked ahead of the Ferengi through a door into a corridor until one of the Ferengi motioned to him to step into a turbolift. They rode the turbolift down three decks and then the Ferengi marched their prisoner down another corridor.

When they reached the end of the corridor, they entered a room that contained a holding cell behind a force field. One of the Ferengi pushed a few buttons in the wall and deactivated a forcefield. They shoved Data into a cell and reactivated the force field. The cell was already occupied. A skinny man in a striped suit was sitting on a cot.

Krax was satisfied. His cargo bays were filled with technology from the large Romulan ship. He did not bother with the damaged Federation ship or the two Romulan Warbirds. Even though all three were heavily damaged, he figured that they were not worth the risk.

Another Ferengi, what was their equivalent of a security officer, stepped out of a turbolift onto the bridge and reported: "Daimon Krax, we have taken another prisoner."

"Is the prisoner Romulan?" Krax asked, wondering why the transporters had picked him. His transporter chief had set them not to transport any living tissue, in order to prevent them from accidentally beaming up boarding parties.

"No, sir. The prisoner is an android wearing a Starfleet uniform."

Krax immediately realized who he was dealing with.

"Double security", he told his security officer. "Berek, check if Kivas Fajo is still in Federation custody", he said to another member of his crew.

"Kivas Fajo had escaped from the Federation penal colony on Idris IX during the Dominion War. Do you want me to find his contact information?" Berek asked.

"Yes, I want to contact him. I have some merchandise he will be interested in"

In the meantime, Data had introduced himself to his fellow prisoner and started a conversation.

"Hello, I am Lt. Commander Data of the Federation Starship Enterprise. Who are you, if I may ask?"

"I am the Doctor", the skinny man introduced himself with a British accent.

"That is good to know. However, I am an android and as such do not require medical assistance. What is your name if I may ask?"

"I am just The Doctor. I don't have a name." The Doctor responded.

Data briefly thought about the nameless emergency medical holograms Starfleet introduced a few years ago, who were often referred to as "The Doctor" but this man was flesh and blood. In his internal memory banks Data found various references from legends to a mysterious time traveler called "The Doctor". These references showed up in the mythologies of several different cultures who had no prior contact with each other.

"This appears to be a Ferengi starship. Do you know where we are heading?" Data asked.

"This ship belongs to Daimon Krax, a Ferengi scavenger. Krax is after an artifact from the Time War. This artifact is a very dangerous weapon that can erase entire planets from history. We must destroy this weapon before it falls into the wrong hands." the Doctor said to Data.

"I am not familiar with the event you refer to as "the time war", Data said.

"You don't know how lucky you are!" the Doctor responded.

"This weapon is capable of erasing entire worlds from history", the Doctor explained. "It has been discovered by the Romulan general Volskiar decades ago, forgotten, re-discovered by Shinzon and is now being studied at a secret outpost."

"I agree that our galaxy is not ready for such kind of technology, especially not the Romulans or the Ferengi." Data said.

"And besides that, the last time this weapon was used it malfunctioned. It is unstable and unpredictable. I was there when it was first tested. It was my people who created it." The Doctor explained.

"Do you have a plan?" Data asked.

"We can't get access to the weapon now, its location is too heavily guarded. But if we travel back to a time when its purpose was unknown, we might have a better chance for success."

"I have devised 47 possible plans for our escape. The one with the highest success rate involves cracking the code to our force field and stealing a romulan fighter with a cloaking device from the cargo bay," Data said.

"I have considered cracking the code myself using my sonic screwdriver, but I need a powerful computer to run a code breaking algorithm", the Doctor responded.

"What is a sonic screwdriver?" Data asked.

The Doctor explained it to him.

"I must admit, this sonic screwdriver is an intriguing piece of technology. It takes a great understanding of several disciplines of physics to manufacture such a sophisticated device." Data commented.

While Daimon Krax was inspecting his loot in the cargo holds, Data and the Doctor figured out the details of their escape plan.

"I can interface my positronic brain with your sonic screwdriver to deactivate the force field. I just need to send the right combination of signals at the right frequency", Data offered.

"Great, then we will make our way up to the TARDIS and leave".

"I assume the TARDIS is your ship. Does it have a cloaking device?" Data asked.

"Better. Much, much better." The Doctor answered with a sly grin on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Data adjusted his internal wireless transceiver to the frequency the Doctor had provided to him in order to interface with the sonic screwdriver. Pointing the sonic screwdriver at the door lock, Data ran a complex algorithms in his positronic brain that allowed him to open the lock with the help of the sonic screwdriver. Data sat still, with his eyes flashing and the sonic screwdriver whirred and flickered. After two minutes the door opened and the Timelord and the android carefully stepped outside into the corridor. Data then handed the sonic screwdriver back to the Doctor, who put it back in his pocket.

"Can you please describe the TARDIS?" Data asked politely.

"It's a large blue box", the Doctor answered, peeking around a corner.

"Does it have the words "Police Box" painted on it?" Data asked.

"Exactly! That's her.", the doctor said.

"Follow me", Data gestured, briefly wondering why the Doctor would refer to an inanimate object as "her", then realizing that people often use female pronouns for ships and remembering instances where his crewmates referred to the Enterprise as "she" or "her".

Shortly later Data and the Doctor arrived outside the same cargo bay where Data had been taken prisoner and where the TARDIS was stored. The door to the cargo bay was guarded by two Ferengi. Data search through his internal memory banks and came up with 73 possible ways to incapacitate the guards. He chose a trick he had learned when he had participated in one of Captain Picard's Dixon Hill holodeck adventures. Since it was a relatively simple trick, he decided to modify it slightly to ensure the two Ferengi guards would fall for it. The Doctor provided a distraction, and Data snuck up from behind and used the Vulcan nerve pinch on both Ferengi, who promptly lost consciousness and slumped to the ground. Ambassador Spock had taught Data the Vulcan nerve pinch on a covert mission to Romulus several years ago.

"I am intrigued", Data said, following the Doctor aboard the TARDIS.

"Because it's bigger on the inside?" the Doctor asked.

The Doctor's goal was to destroy the time weapon before either the Romulans figured out how to use or replicate it, or before it fell into the hands of the person who hired the Ferengi to steal it. Data was a Starfleet officer and as such his goal was to protect the Federation, which meant that his objective aligned with that of the Doctor, in a broad sense. He knew that the Enterprise was too badly damaged to assist in finding and destroying the time weapon. And this is how Data became the Doctor's latest travel companion, at least for a short time. Data wanted to return to the Enterprise as soon as the time weapon was destroyed and submit a full report to Captain Picard.

 _ **Romulus in the year 2344, a week after the Battle of Narendra III**_

With its characteristic wheezing, groaning noise, the TARDIS materialized in a small town a few miles outside the capital city of the planet Romulus. Data and the Doctor, disguised as Romulans, stepped outside and began to make plans to destroy the time weapon. Walking around and observing the fashion and the level of technology, they quickly found out they had arrived sometime in the 2330's or 2340's, which was good. Since it purpose was not yet known to the Romulans at that time, the weapon was less heavily guarded and stored in a crate in a warehouse.

"I suggest we find a better way to disguise your time machine", Data said. "There is a 78.3% chance that it will arouse suspicion if it is detected in its current state."

The average Romulan citizen was unable to read English or any other human language, so the words "Police Box" written on the side of the TARDIS were to them just a series of strange symbols. But the blue box stood out nonetheless.

"Nah," the Doctor said dismissively, "we'll be fine."

"I think the appropriate expression is the time machine is sticking out like a sore thumb." Data commented.

"The chameleon circuit is completely fried. I haven't gotten around to fixing that", the Doctor explained.

"I assume that this chameleon circuit you mention is responsible for the cloaking abilities of your time machine. May I have a look?" Data asked.

"Sure, knock yourself out. The chameleon circuit is under that panel over there. You can borrow my sonic and I have a replicator over here to make whatever spare parts you need." The Doctor replied, gesturing at a panel at the bottom of the control console in the center of the TARDIS with one hand and to a replicator built into the wall with the other.

Half an hour later, the chameleon circuit was fixed and the TARDIS assumed the physical appearance of a small building of Romulan architecture that blended into the environment so perfectly that the locals could swear it had been there for decades.

The Doctor and his new travel companion sat down in the TARDIS and accessed the public news network. There were several channels, all government controlled and heavily censored. Data selected one and both started watching.

Since the current time and date was displayed in a corner of the screen, Data was able to infer that they had arrived in the year 2344 by converting the date from the Romulan calendar into Earth years.

The big news of the day was the return of an ambitious Romulan general named Meldet Volskiar from a successful battle at the Klingon outpost Narendra III. Despite losing several warbirds, the battle was considered a success, since Volskiar had managed to destroy the outpost and all opposing Klingon forces. His most valuable trophy was the stardrive section of the Enterprise-C, which according to an interview he was planning to turn into a private luxury yacht. Eight crewmembers of the Enterprise-C had survived the battle and been taken prisoner. One of the prisoners was a woman with short, blonde hair. She stood out, because unlike the other prisoners, who were wearing the maroon colored Starfleet uniforms of that time period, hers was yellow and black. Data paused the news video, zoomed in on her face and immediately recognized her as Lt. Natasha Yar.

"You look like you have just seen a ghost", the Doctor said.

"I am not sure if that is possible, but maybe I have", Data responded.

"Do you know this woman", the Doctor asked.

"I am not certain", Data replied, "but she reminds me of someone I knew many years ago."

Data spent several million processor cycles analyzing the current situation and determining his next course of action. Data's emotion chip allowed him to have romantic feelings for Tasha. He missed her, even though she had been killed long before his emotion chip had been installed. She was supposed to have died on Vagra II at the hands of Armus many years ago, but here she was in the flesh. Data had a strong desire to rescue her, even though that would possibly alter the timeline. Data's feelings for Tasha conflicted with his duty to follow the Temporal Prime Directive, so he deactivated his emotion chip. But was Data already violating the Temporal Prime Directive by helping this Doctor?

Was Tasha's presence in this era not already an interference? "How did she get there? Was Sela's story actually true? Would removing Tasha from this era restore the timeline, or would it convolute it even more? It would certainly cause unforeseen consequences. How severe would those consequences be?

Searching his internal memory banks, Data remembered Sela, the Romulan/ Human hybrid who claimed Tasha Yar was her mother who had been sent back in time to the battle of Narendra III by Captain Picard aboard a time-travelling Enterprise-C. Now, after seeing Tasha in this time, that story started making somewhat more sense to Data. Data told the Doctor about Tasha and Sela and together they began to analyze possible scenarios and came to the conclusion that the Tasha they saw in the recording must have been sent back in time from an alternate reality in which she never died on Vagra II.

Data's positronic brain was a lot better at analyzing a complicated situation like this than the biological brain of an average humanoid, who would most likely have gotten completely confused. The Doctor may have been humanoid, but far from what one would call average and to Data it was obvious that time travel was something the Doctor did on a regular basis. Even without his emotion chip activated, Data wanted to rescue Tasha. The Doctor told him about fixed points in time that could not be changed. That knowledge somewhat eased Data's concerns about messing up the timeline if he rescued Tasha. They came to the following conclusion: Since Tasha was from 2366 she clearly did not belong in the year 2344 and they would try to take her with them after the time weapon was destroyed. Also, it became clear that since she was from an alternate timeline which no longer existed, taking her to 2379 instead of 2366 would cause the least amount of damage to the timeline.


End file.
